


hollowed out so heavenly

by hooksandheroics



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Constellations, Do you all want to see Zuko go out of his mind?, F/M, Introspection, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Unrequited Love, lots of introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:22:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25825840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hooksandheroics/pseuds/hooksandheroics
Summary: Zuko's mark was burnt off his face as a punishment so he has nothing to tell, really. When Katara asked, he knew his answer would be disappointing.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 249





	hollowed out so heavenly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [twilightstargazer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilightstargazer/gifts).



The capital city doesn’t get much rain, Zuko ponders, but when it does, it pours.

(There’s a drizzle right now, but the worst is yet to come.)

It’s well into the middle of the cold days but the palace is too guarded for even a breeze to get through. He thinks, such is the life of a new Fire Lord. It’s not going to change any time soon, not with the twice-attempted assassinations and the countless black propaganda. Zuko thinks that one of these days, he’s going to take his friends’ advice and go somewhere far for a vacation… but not right now. 

Right now, it’s his birthday and he is unbelievably _tired_. 

He can’t even begin to untangle the thoughts running amok in his head, not even with the help of the fine sake Toph had slipped him five minutes into the celebration. Zuko wants to think it all started when he was ten and the mark appeared just shy of touching the corner of his left eye. But truly, the thoughts had begun gathering much earlier, when his cousin Lu Ten died and a strange lady appeared at the wake.

In the somber of the ceremony room where Lu Ten’s ashes were being prayed over by the twelve holy ministers, where his forehead was touching the burnt umber of the hardwood floors and his eyes were closed in grief and indignation, Zuko finally realized that the Spirits are cruel and unforgiving. 

There she was, a woman unnamed for the longest time; she didn’t look like she was from the Fire Nation, not with the proud insignia on her chest that said Earth Kingdom, and she had never met Lu Ten, but a part of her soul had just died with him. Uncle said it was fate and fate is as set in stone as it is unpredictable, and it took Zuko years to understand just what all of that meant. 

She had grieved for a man that she had never loved, marked by the Spirits around her wrist and bound to an ethereal promise way before she had any say in it. And now cousin Lu Ten was dead and she had to feel the heartbreak.

(She had lifted her sleeve and showed Uncle the mark, the simple outlines of a leaf the shape of the ones in the palace’s garden that Lu Ten used to tend to when he was still alive. Lu Ten’s was a raindrop at the dip of his throat.

“Leaves from the vine,” Uncle had whispered.

“I loved the rain,” the woman had replied, eyes glued to the urn.)

Uncle said, “the strings of fate are a blessing and a curse.” He had stirred Zuko’s tea with the teaspoon of honey his young palate would often wish for, and touched Zuko’s cheek with the warmth that he knew Uncle wished he was giving his son. His eyes were sad and in the midst of the bizarreness that had happened that afternoon, _that_ was what stayed with Zuko for a long time. “I hope, for the sake of your heart, that you never feel that much sadness.”

Could there be a sadder sadness, then?

The distant music and chatter reaches far into the deeper parts of the palace as the dusk settles around his city, so he sits by the pond and sighs. He wanted to escape, but escape seems impossible. Not that he’s really trying.

He thinks of Katara then. He always does, an embarrassing amount of times. But right now, he’s thinking about the dance that they were supposed to finish. For the longest time, all he wanted was to hold her as close as that, music or none at all. And then he sees Aang somewhere in the background, unassuming and innocent and unworthy of being betrayed by his friend just because he couldn’t control his heart.

Zuko couldn’t help it, though. He thinks of that moment not ten minutes ago, when Katara, ever the most beautiful woman Zuko has ever seen, shot him a playful smile as she pulled him closer by the hand and tugged him into a dance in their little corner of the feast hall. 

He wasn’t up there in the middle with all the nobles, he was sulking in a corner, wishing to be somewhere else. Somewhere quiet, where his headache wouldn’t grow and eat his whole brain. There Katara was, though, gazing through the crowd with amusement. She looked radiant in her formal dress, something bright in her eyes that kept Zuko rooted to his seat, admiring her like an adoring child.

She inevitably caught him staring and rolled her eyes affectionately.

She said, “it’s your birthday, your highness.” And then she touched the back of his neck with a hand so warm and gentle that Zuko forgot to breathe for a while. “Don’t you want to dance?”

He almost forgot to answer, breath still caught somewhere in his throat from the proximity and the warmth, and oh Agni, should he be taken right now, at least it was here, right now. 

“I don’t dance,” he replied instead, and then realized that Katara is a wave and he is just a grain of sand on her shore. Should he be swept away right now, all he would ever be able to do is go wherever she wanted him to go. 

And she wanted to dance. 

She had bowed her head to hide her rolling eyes and it brought her much closer, stealing a heartbeat right out of his chest, unknowingly. When she looked up, she was smirking. “Nonsense, you’re dancing right now.”

Zuko felt the corner of his lips pull into a smile. “I was _coerced_.”

“I, a Water Tribe peasant, can _not_ make the Fire Lord do anything he didn’t want to do.”

 _Oh Agni, she’s so close to the truth._ Because he did want to do it, he wanted to dance with her, and hold her close. Often, he wanted to find out how her lips tasted, or if her fingers would fit the spaces between his own. He had never thought he was one for hand-holding, and yet his daydreams are the feeling of her palm against his, pathetically.

“Zuko?” 

Agni, her eyes.

“Are you alright? You look dazed.” She tilted her head and then looked at his chest, where she knew very well was the point where the lightning struck four years ago. “Have you been resting the way I told you to?”

He smiles. Of course, she had taken it as her mission to become his personal physician to pay her “debt”. Zuko could tell her that he’s never looked at it as debt, but then she would stop coming to the city to check up on him whenever she can. She would stop nagging him about his sleep schedule and his diet, she would stop touching his chest with her healing hands.

Zuko could only give up so many things as sacrifice for this position, he would hold on to Katara’s presence in his life as long as he could.

He saw her hand hover above the scar so he took it and put it back on his shoulder. “I’m fine, just a little tired. A _normal_ amount of tired,” he added. “Can we just… dance now?”

For a second, she just stared at him all quiet and contemplative. And then she rested her head on his chest and laughed, so small and contained that it made his chest ache. Not the scar, no, but the heart under it. It was loud in the hall, but he heard it like it was connected to his heart.

“I knew you wanted to,” she murmured. 

She knew, somehow, she always knew.

She called him a _friend_ in a meeting three days ago, in front of all the ambassadors, the council, and their friends. She had said it so nonchalantly that Zuko had already forgotten the context around it, but she had smiled at him from across the long table and nodded like she knew what he was thinking. Like she knew that Zuko would take _friend_ any time over _strangers with a shared past_. 

Like she knew that every letter she had ever sent him was stored in his chambers in a box. They reside with the rest of his friends’ letters, but the creases of hers were deeper. The words, worn out and ingrained in his head. 

Like she knew that he was in love with her and that it happened like a forest fire. A spark, and then a lingering ache to tell him that this was his life now. He’s Fire Lord now, he has a group of friends who care about him, an Uncle who owns the best tea shop in the Earth Kingdom, and he’s in love with Katara.

The Avatar was still in the background of Zuko’s thoughts, lingering like a ghost to remind him that if he held Katara the way he always wanted, he would be breaking hearts. But she was in the foreground now, getting closer and closer every sway and ebb of the music. _Poor heart_ , Zuko had thought with no amount of pity. _Struck with lightning, weak, and now dying. Could you be stronger?_

As he thought this to himself, his eyes stray to the back of her neck, the skin there unblemished and inked, the tattoo moving with every breath she took.

And… _oh_ , this couldn’t happen. 

It was just an outline, reminiscent of all those years ago. But it was his mother’s favorite constellation, the one she was named after.

Zuko had felt his heart break into a million tiny pieces. What was it that Uncle had said? _The universe sees your desires._ Does it also play with them? Does it know that the woman he’s in love with is with someone else? Is it so cruel like this?

He felt his scarred cheek tingle with the reminder that it once held a mark that could be about Katara, too. But it was too long ago, he had already forgotten what it looked like. There was a reason it was his left cheek that Ozai decided to burn out of the many cruel things he could have done.

It wasn’t until Zuko was holding in his arms what he couldn’t ever have that he realized just how _tired_ he actually was. He wanted to touch the side of his face, that skin that used to bear the mark, but he couldn’t. He didn’t want to think about how he couldn’t even recall what it looked like, or how it was shaped. He just knew that it was long ago, erased by a cruel man by his cruel hand. After all, he didn’t think he would ever get to _this_. A life where he was sure.

And Katara, he was sure about her, like he was sure that the sun would shine the next day, or that the tides would return, or that if he told her that his head was killing him, she would drop the party and make sure he rested. He had never been that sure about anyone else. 

So instead, he stepped away from Katara and bowed like the ridiculous man that he was, and ran.

His turtle ducks look like they have nothing to worry about all their lives.

*

There’s a flash of lightning and five seconds later, the distant crackle of thunder. If it’s a storm, he could escape to the training room and spend the night there or until all the guests have left the feast hall. But right now, he stays by the pond, back to the old tree, trying not to grit his teeth against the throbbing pain in his temples. 

He wants to stop thinking about Katara for a myriad of reasons, but most importantly, that she will never see him that way. The moment he realized was the same moment he vowed never to tell her, lest he lose her friendship.

(It took him a long time to accept that. And a longer time to forgive himself for even thinking that it was possible.)

Weirdly acquired tattoo aside, this whole _bound-by-the-Spirits_ ordeal is ridiculous. Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, ambassador, and Master Water Bender, would never bow to the whims of the universe. She, who smiled and cracked the patriarchal and misogynistic ways of the North with sheer will and bravado, will never accept a fate that binds her to someone.

For that thought alone, Zuko allows himself to smile.

(Distantly, he thinks, if he died, she would still grieve for him because he was a friend. Her heartbreak would be the normal kind, reserved for friends that shared the battlefield with her.

He resigns himself to accept that. It is, anyway, the best course of action.)

He hears voices going down the hallways of the nearby rooms so he presses his back further into the tree he’s leaning upon, shaking his head at this childish behavior. Here he is, the leader of a nation, hiding from his guards because he is tired and cranky and he wants a nap.

And because he has just discovered that his friend is his soul mate.

Today was a lot to take in, and it isn’t done yet.

“It’s not good for the Fire Lord to be this predictable,” says the voice of the very woman he was thinking about. She whispers it into the night, but he hears it all the same. The amusement in her voice, the small hint of apprehension, and the smile. She rounds the trunk of the tree and comes to stand before him, fixes him with a gaze and a shake of her head. 

Zuko realizes just then how helpless he is in her orbit, and hopes to Agni that she never finds out just how much power she has over him. 

“No one’s found me yet.” _Except you._

“Except me.”

He nods and doesn’t let his eyes linger on her expression. “Except you.”

She takes a small step forward, away from the light from the hallways and into the shadow of the tree. She smells like sake and the spices that she says she hates but still consumes. 

“Is something wrong?” she asks now, meek. He wants to lie but his heart tells him to be true. At least, partially.

“I have a headache,” he tells her instead, hoping she would buy it. “Needed some air, is all.”

Katara takes a breath and closes the gap between them, hand raised to touch the side of his face. His eyes flutter with the sudden warmth right there on his unscarred cheek, skin damp from the light drizzling and the night’s humidity. His head bows forward because he is a masochist and he wants more of her palm, more of her warmth.

The universe is cruel but it has its moments.

“You should have told me,” Katara sighs, her hand lingering there. How does he tell her to never let go? To stay like this for a while? Could he even tell her?

“I don’t want to be a bother,” he replies, hand coming up to hold hers there. _Yes_ , he thinks. _She would allow this_. “People are enjoying the feast, I can’t tell them to shut up just because I’m this close to punching the tsungi horn player for his terrible playing.”

Katara shakes her head again and giggles, the sound of it lilting and bouncing around in his bones. His chest fills up with pride.

“Cranky,” she comments, thumb swiping at the moisture on his cheek. “Is it because you saw it?”

His face must have shown his sudden confusion because she clarifies it immediately. “My mark, you saw it?”

And just like that, all the breath goes out of his lungs in one exhale. He feels dizzy, unbalanced. Unable to speak. 

Katara plows on like he isn’t internally panicking. “Not everybody has it. Curiously, mine had just showed up a few months ago. I’m not really sure when, but Sokka saw it at the back of my neck, so naturally, I had to research it.”

_Naturally._

Her hand slides into his hair and he lets out a tortured sigh. She knows, doesn’t she? If not about the meaning of the mark to him, then maybe about how powerless he is when she does this. Or gets close. Anything, really, if it has to do with her.

“There was almost nothing about it in the libraries in the Earth Kingdom, nor up north. When I came up here three days ago, though, I asked Iroh about it. He said your cousin had it, too. He said it was the universe’s way of telling me that there’s someone for me out there.” She laughs at this memory. Uncle must have said it the way he always says things: absurdly and nonsensically. Zuko can’t help but laugh with her.

“I showed it to him, actually,” she continues. “In the South, we used to rely on the stars to guide us through endless oceans and mountains of white. I wasn’t a sailor like my father, but he taught Sokka and I about the patterns they make in the sky and what they mean so that if we ever get lost, we would know how to get back home. This one, it’s --” 

“Ursa Major,” he says, voice weak against the sky’s chaotic rumbling. 

For a moment, there’s nothing between them but the silence of their breaths. He realizes that he is breathing too irregularly, too mechanically. Katara is calm and steady like the drizzling around them. 

Can she tell that he’s in shambles?

“Zuko,” she starts, the strength in her voice so evident that it surprises him. Agni, they’ve grown so much over the years, but she’s still as determined as the day he met her. If she’s here to tell him to fuck off, he would take it. He would beg on his knees to keep her in his life, however. “Where’s yours?”

Zuko picks her other hand up and puts it against his scarred skin. He almost feels nothing, but her presence pierces through the thick, marred tissue, and into his soul. He feels her _there_. 

“Gone,” he replies. “Burnt off. A punishment for a lifetime.”

“What was it?”

He shakes his head, disappointed at himself for not knowing the answer. “I don’t remember. Maybe Uncle knows what it looked like, but for the life of me, I can’t seem to remember.” And because he feels like he should, he says, “I’m sorry.”

Katara holds him like that for a minute and then pulls her hands away. His chest seizes painfully until her arms come snaking around his torso, ear pressing against his sternum so firmly that he just knows she can hear his heart like that.

“I’m not going to become the universe’s humble servant,” she tells him like this. 

Zuko scoffs, he’s expected nothing less. “I know that.”

“Good. I’m glad we’re clear about that.” She lifts her head and looks up at him, brows furrowed so adorably on that pouty expression that she’s wearing.

He chuckles and wraps his arms around her.

He remembers telling her about his scar, about who gave it to him, and how he found his salvation by telling his father that he is choosing his own destiny in that lonely underground throne room the day of the eclipse. He remembers that she cried with him in his room, embraced him, and told him that he’s been doing so well.

The way she believed in him, that was all that mattered back then.

“Zuko, I love you.”

“Yeah, me too.” No big deal, they pass these words around their tiny group of friends as often as breathing. If his chest pinches a little when Katara says it, that’s not on her.

“No,” she says.

“No?”

“Yeah,” she nods her head. “Like this.”

And then she kisses him.

Her lips are warm, pressed against his and it takes him an embarrassingly long second to realize that this isn’t a dream. Her embrace is real, her lips on his are real. She lets out a sigh and that’s real, too. 

So he gathers her closer in his arms and opens his mouth to taste her, feeling the sheer shockwave of it all in his bones and just letting it run through his whole body -- the desire, the want, the raw weight in his chest lifting and letting him breathe.

If she knows what she does to him, what she _could_ do to him…

“Katara,” he murmurs, not quite a moan, but a plea. “Why?”

She’s still in his arms and he’s afraid she’s going to pull away soon, but she puts her hand on his chest, and the other on his scar. She looks dazed, eyes shining with something he couldn’t place but knows is in his eyes, too. 

“I don’t even know where to begin,” she says. “I just knew. Way before the mark appeared, so it doesn’t really… it doesn’t really matter to me. If you don’t know how yours looked like, it doesn’t matter. But I do know that I’ve felt this way for so long.

“I…” she laughs and bites her lips to contain it, and Zuko wants to know how that would taste against his tongue. “I get so excited whenever an opportunity to visit the Fire Nation arises. I wanted to see you as often as I could. I knew what it was only after I'd already gotten myself so deep into it. Aang… I think he knew, so I had to… we talked it out.”

Agni. She’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. The kindest, smartest, most compassionate lady in all the nations. To even exist in her atmosphere is a blessing itself. 

He rests his forehead against hers. They’re so close that the space between their bodies is nothing but the ebb and flow of their breaths. And because he can, he kisses her again.

This time, she catches his lower lip between her, nips and pulls and _Agni_ , if he knew her kisses would make him weak like this, he would have lost the battle. She bunches his tunic in her hand and presses against him harder, pinning him against the trunk of the tree, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip.

(He notices the rain. But, not really.)

There are voices looking for the Fire Lord and ambassador Katara, but they ignore those. He’s making a low noise in the back of his throat but he can’t help it. He’s so weak.

“Katara, I --” he swallows and pulls away for a little bit. “I don’t care about the universe, too.”

She nods and presses a kiss against his throat. He sighs and remembers to breathe before he tells her.

“I’m just glad it’s you.”

She smiles against his skin, her only answer the silence and the one reverent kiss she presses there. Suddenly, he couldn’t wait for tomorrow when he could finally see her in the sunlight. She could spend the night with him, or she could go back to the South Pole the next day, but he just wants to see her every moment that he could because here she is, his destiny set in stone and unpredictable all at the same time.

He can’t wait to tell the universe to go fuck itself.

**Author's Note:**

> for nai, thank you for tolerating my bursts of zutara ramblings at 3am (my timezone lmao). i hope everybody liked it. if you did, leave a comment or a kudos or bookmark it!


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